


a barn is a palace with you

by Prim_the_Amazing



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26660731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prim_the_Amazing/pseuds/Prim_the_Amazing
Summary: Nott hisses in frustration after a while. “There’s a light on in every house, or smoke coming from a chimney.”He had noticed the same. Meaning, there is no convenient, empty abandoned home for them to sneak into and use for themselves for a night.The sky rumbles ominously.“We need not a house to stay dry,” he says. They’ve slept underneath bridges before, in caves, anything that might provide them some paltry shelter, really. An idea catches inside of his mind like a flint finally creating a spark that births a flame. They are not too dignified, too impractical to sleep where animals lay. And they are in a rural town. “Come, friend, and we can go and sleep in a barn. There will be a roof, hay to keep us warm, and livestock do not snitch.”
Relationships: Nott | Veth Brenatto & Caleb Widogast
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	a barn is a palace with you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [venndaai](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/gifts).



> Some minor warnings at the end of the chapter.

Caleb is pretty much used to sleeping out in the open by now, but he can taste an oncoming storm in the air, and he’d rather not that he or Nott get sick and die. Or at least, he doesn’t want for Nott to die, and he doesn’t want to leave her alone either. She doesn’t have any magic of her own, even if she peppers him with fascinated questions sometimes when they’re alone, the questions sometimes hitting him from an unexpected, off the wall, clever angle that shows just how much raw intelligence she really has. He’d never seen a goblin at the academy, and he doubts there has ever been one, but sometimes he thinks with a little bit of wistful awe just how incredible she could be, if she was given the right tools and resources and environment, the chance to shine, an ignored and neglected diamond in the rough. 

Then again, the idea of Nott being  _ moulded _ by-- 

By anyone. The idea of Nott being moulded and shaped into a sharp and talented  _ torturer _ is sickening. So perhaps it is for the best, that the academy does not accept goblins. It should not accept anyone at all, perhaps. 

He realizes, the sensation sinking into his mind ever so slowly and gradually, that there is a hand in his. Words spoken into the air. 

“--lebbie? You can-- we’ve gotta get somewhere, find shelter, then you can do your-- your thousand yard stare thing, alright, all night long, as long as you like, but I think it’s going to rain soon and I don’t want to get wet. Caleb?” Nott’s voice is rapid pace, anxious and fast and concerned. No one should be concerned for him, but she doesn’t know what he’s really like, so it is understandable, perhaps. All she knows of him is the quiet wizard who has always been on her side. The kindness feels like something he is stealing from her without her knowing, something he’s using her trust to trick out of her. 

It is going to storm soon. She’s right, he can get lost in the murky depths of his thoughts later, when they’re as safe as they can ever be for the night. 

“Yes,” he says, shaking off the sticky, clinging thoughts, even though being free of them for even a moment is more than he deserves. He can convince himself to allow himself this though, for Nott’s sake. It is okay for him to break himself out of a jail cell, if it is for Nott. It is okay for him to go to sleep, if it is for Nott. It is okay for him to eat, if it is for Nott. So he can help her be free and safe, with his magic. So long as he’s with her, he can excuse his own enormous selfishness of taking even a modicum of care for himself. Because it’s for her, of course, entirely for her. 

They go in search of shelter. Neither of them like densely populated places, but the wilderness isn’t quite their style either. They prefer rustic villages, with only about a hundred people or so living there. Enough people to pickpocket from, not so many that there is a presence of royal guards to be wary of, that Nott has to be scared of anyone glimpsing her green skin, that he has to fear someone recognizing him. The town they are in right now is just right. 

They are a bit more down on their luck than usual, though. There is no money left for an inn. They will have to figure something else out. They don’t even have Frumpkin to scout things out for them, the cat having been kicked to death by some bastard guard a few days ago, and he still hasn’t been able to get his hands on more incense to summon him back. 

Nott hisses in frustration after a while. “There’s a light on in every house, or smoke coming from a chimney.” 

He had noticed the same. Meaning, there is no convenient, empty abandoned home for them to sneak into and use for themselves for a night. 

The sky rumbles ominously. 

“We need not a house to stay dry,” he says. They’ve slept underneath bridges before, in caves, anything that might provide them some paltry shelter, really. An idea catches inside of his mind like a flint finally creating a spark that births a flame. They are not too dignified, too impractical to sleep where animals lay. And they are in a rural town. “Come, friend, and we can go and sleep in a barn. There will be a roof, hay to keep us warm, and livestock do not snitch.” 

“Oh! Oh, Caleb, you’re so smart!” she gushes. As usual, he doesn’t know what to say in response to her overly generous praise.  _ No you are incorrect _ seems too rude and ungrateful of a response. And who is he to say that she is wrong and he is right? 

She is wrong, though. It’s not her fault. She doesn’t have all of the information. 

“Let us go before we get drenched,” he says instead. “I am not fond of the idea of sleeping in wet rags.” 

Nott shudders with theatrical disgust and takes his hand and scampers towards the closest barn that they see. They skirt the yellow glow of lamplight spilled from the windows of the nearby house of the family that presumably owns said barn. Nott has to slow down for his sake eventually even though he does not ask for it or voice complaint, his breathing going embarrassingly loud and strained. He is not as fit as her. He has never been one for running, and that was before he spent over a decade insensate in an asylum. She keeps holding his hand, using her keen dark vision to point out rocks and lumps in the grass to him so he does not fall in their haste to avoid the heavens opening up on them at any moment. 

She is more than he deserves. Caleb does not deserve anything good, but he especially doesn’t deserve her. 

They just barely make it. They have to work together to lift the plank keeping the door shut, Nott too short to get proper leverage and he too puny, but they manage it, opening the door a crack before slipping inside. They cannot put the plank back in place from the inside. He thinks of using Mage Hand for a moment, but he needs line of sight, which won’t work with the door closed. Well, they will just have to leave it as is and hope for the best. 

Hope has not served Caleb well, but he has nothing else left but that, some spells, and a kind, clever goblin who doesn’t know better than to befriend him. 

Outside the doors, he hears rain pound down onto the earth all at once, like it’s being poured out in buckets. 

“Close one!” Nott says, sounding like she just barely avoided an arrow aimed for her throat. 

“Yes,” says Caleb, and he casts Dancing Lights. The animals react immediately. He’d glimpsed a small pig pen and chicken coop outside, so they are not here at the very least, thank the gods. But there are others. Sheep bleat, cows low, and even a couple of horses whinny in a startled fright at their first sight of magic, sudden and inexplicable and terrifying. Nott shrieks and dives behind him at the sudden ruckus, drawing her crossbow in one whip fast motion. 

“Please do not shoot a cow in the head,” he begs of her. He would feel guilty, taking a livestock animal from a family of farmers. He doesn’t know how much it would hurt them, financially. That, and he does not want to sleep with the stink of blood and death-shit filling up the structure of the barn, the place smelling foul enough as is. The animals would panic as well, presumably, not quietening down for the rest of the night. 

“Fuck,” she swears. She lowers her crossbow, hands trembling faintly, and he knows that she’d be reaching for a bottle of drink had they not run out of alcohol days ago. He feels guilty and relieved at the same time, that he doesn’t have any to offer her. Her habits worry him sometimes. But who is he to judge? “Gods, they’re  _ gigantic,”  _ she says with unsettled disgust. 

He understands the sentiment. He grew up in a rural village just like this one, his parents were farmers as well. They focused on crops mostly, they just had a couple of pigs for the sake of the manure they produced, but plenty of his neighbours had livestock just like this. He grew up with it. Still, after spending any amount of time away from it all, it is a bit startling and frightening to be reminded of how  _ big  _ a cow really is. Bigger than humans. It seems wrong somehow. It must be even worse for Nott, tiny goblin that she is, even if she may be used to most things being bigger than her. 

His Dancing Lights reveal something to him. He touches Nott’s shoulder and points. 

“Look,” he says, “a second floor. We can climb up there and sleep, away from the animals.” 

The animals are being kept in pens and stalls, but still, they are noisy things. He prefers it when the only being he can hear breathing in the dark of the night is Nott. 

“Great!” she says, and she finds the ladder going up there faster than he does, of course. She pulls herself up, fast and light, and the yellow reflective surface of her eyes glint in the faint light cast by his Dancing Lights as she pokes her head out from over the side after she’s reached the top. “Come on, Caleb! There’s hay up here, it’s perfect! We can make a nest!” 

He smiles, despite himself. She makes it sound like a fun lark, a luxury. A nest made of hay, as if they are birds and not people. Honestly, it is a bit of a luxury, compared to normal. It’s definitely better than sleeping on the hard ground. 

“I am coming,” he says, and he goes, his Dancing Lights trailing behind him like fireflies. The animals slowly start to settle down. Hopefully they will go completely quiet once he is up there and settled, and can extinguish the spell. He is breathing a bit loudly once he crests the top, and Nott reaches to help pull him up the last distance as if she is not a third of his size, quick and anxious like she’s afraid he’s about to slip and fall. 

He helps Nott gather some hay together into a pile that will hopefully be tolerable, and maybe even vaguely pleasant, to sleep on for the night. He entertains himself with thoughts of Nott having a broad and sprawling collection of the beautiful, shiny things that she adores so much, and arranging it carefully in a nest like a particularly pointy magpie, ready to viciously defend her hoard. 

And then he hears voices. Low and nervous, muttering to each other. 

_ “Scheise,” _ he hisses. “The animals, the family must have heard them panic--” 

He has just enough time to snap his fingers and extinguish his lights before the door creaks open. The door that is missing the plank that should be keeping it firmly shut. They won’t just suspect that someone has snuck into their barn, they now _ know _ it. His stomach twists, and he curls his hands into white knuckled fists. 

“Oh god,” Nott whispers, too loud and too harsh. “Oh gods, what do we do? Should we kill them?” 

If Caleb were alone, he would just let the farmers find him and do with him what they wished. It is their right, after all. What he deserves. 

No. If Caleb were alone, he wouldn’t have sought shelter in the barn to start with. He would’ve let himself be soaked and cold and shivering. 

It doesn’t matter what he would do if he were alone, because he isn’t. He has Nott with him, and no one takes well to trespassers. He has Nott with him, his goblin friend, and people especially don’t take well to  _ goblin  _ trespassers. 

Magic tingles in his fingers. He will do whatever he needs to do. Even if that is hurting and killing innocent citizens of the Empire, yet again. 

“Who’s there?” calls out one of the farmers, half nervous, half defiant. 

Right next to Caleb, there comes an inhuman _ yowl. _ A terrible, ear piercing noise that makes him flinch and recoil. He stares, wide eyed, and sees the dark silhouette of Nott crouching behind some hay. She returns his stare with her own wide, yellow eyes, panic visible at the edges. 

“What was that!?” one of the farmers demands wildly. Nott makes the horrible noise again. 

It clicks inside of his mind, what she’s doing. 

His friend is so very, very clever. Her off the wall ideas are  _ interesting.  _

With a snap of his fingers, he makes the half open doors of the barn slam open wide. The farmers cry out, startled. Nott makes a new sound, a rattling sort of clicking that sounds half insectile, but far too large for an insect. 

Caleb casts Thaumaturgy again, making an indistinct whispering noise rise up in the barn from no particular direction. From the dim light of the outside night, he sees the two farmers back up several steps. 

Here is the thing: the common Empire citizen knows very little of actual magic, beyond the fact that it exists. And common folk, oh, they are superstitious. He remembers the tales from when he was a young boy. There is a monster in the woods, there is a demon lurking at the bottom of that lake, be careful to leave offerings or else this beast will eat your children in the night. 

He and Nott have pulled some passable cons before, either to turn some coin or just weasel their way out of trouble. It will be the first time they pretend to be a monster that has wandered into a barn for a nap and perhaps a bloody snack, but he thinks they might actually be able to pull it off. Between his magic and Nott’s stunning ability to produce some truly astounding noises, they are an unstoppable duo. Or at least, they are a duo that can survive, which is what matters. 

“Come on, boy,” one of the farmers says. The father? “This isn’t a place for us, tonight.” 

“But dad--” 

“If it wants to eat one of our sheep, let it! Better the animals than us. Come now.” 

They go. They both crouch there, silent and holding their breath up in the loft of the barn for a long moment, and then Nott cackles in a triumphant, slightly crazed way, the way she does when they just barely get away with something. Her laughter always makes him grin, just a bit. 

“We did! We scared them off!” she cheers. 

“You scared them off,” he says. “I just gave your performance a bit of flair, is all.” 

“Are you kidding me? That was amazing, Caleb! Oh, we should do this more often, make it a proper con. What should we call it? The Haunted Barn? The Poltergeist That Wants A Bed?” 

He chuckles, the sound scraping out of him rough and low, still a bit unfamiliar to him. “Ja, I like the sound of that first one.” 

“They’re gonna be so scared, they’ll leave us alone the whole night! Bet we can sleep in, even. Just have to make sure to use the backdoor in the morning… or _ make _ a backdoor, maybe.” 

“I am tired,” he says, because he is, now that the panic from the close call is slipping away. They’ve been walking all day, trying to find food or shelter, and he feels a bit weak and faint from hunger, even if he’s gone longer without before. 

“Oh! Yes, bedtime, of course, of course. Here, lebbie, lemme just… there we go! A nice soft pile for us to sleep on.” 

“Thank you,” he says, and he goes to lie down. 

Outside, he hears voices approach again. More hushed and fearful than low and cautious this time, tense. Caleb tenses up in response. 

He had assumed that the family would give the barn and the monster within it a wide berth, but… they might just board the doors up and burn the whole thing down instead. Would they do that? Much of their livelihood is trapped within, cows and sheep and horses. That would be a foolish thing to do, wouldn’t it? But scared people do foolish things. 

“What are they back for  _ now,” _ Nott says, and she sounds more annoyed than anything else, like a woman peeved by the neighbours staying up late and loud and raucous, keeping her from her precious sleep. 

“Let us see,” he says, and wishes they’d taken their chance to sneak out while they had it, rain be damned. 

He cannot see well in the dark, but the farmer who opens the door back open a crack has an oil lamp of his own, a dim orange light showing the fear on his face. It is the boy, perhaps about thirteen or so. He walks into the barn, slow and light footed, eyes darting about in the barn as if he is trying to catch a glimpse of the monster. Once he’s several steps inside, he sets down something on the ground, something large and unwieldy. The straightens back up and bows nervously to the dark of the barn. 

“Please accept our offering, spirit,” he says tightly, quiet like he hopes he won’t be heard. And with that, he leaves the barn as swiftly as he can without outright running or showing his back to the barn. The door closes behind him. 

“Huh,” he says, and when he looks to his side, Nott isn’t there any longer. She’s already sliding down the ladder, and he belatedly moves to follow her. He summons Dancing Lights, since the farmers already know that there is something inside of their barn anyways. 

“Oh!” Nott says, having reached the thing on the ground first. “Caleb, look!” 

He gets close enough to look, his Lights casting a pale light onto the offering. It is a wide, shallow bowl, filled to almost the brim with bright red blood, fresh enough that he can see a bit of steam rising from it. In the bowl of blood, there are things that he recognizes as… organs. 

“Wow,” he says. 

“They must’ve slaughtered one of their chickens!” Nott enthuses. She reaches out and snatches up something that may be a… liver? Caleb has seen the insides of plenty of people in his life, unfortunately, but he does not have as much experience with the insides of animals. As he said, his family was more focused on produce than livestock. 

Tilting her head back, Nott opens her mouth so wide that it looks like her jaw is on the verge of unhinging, her teeth gleaming in the magical light like a bear trap, and she drops the organ straight into her mouth. She gives it about two or three bites, and then swallows the thing. She turns and smiles at him, her smile wide and sharp and bloody. 

“It’s good!” she says. “Caleb, do you want some?” 

“No thank you,” he says demurely. He’s eaten things in the last year that would have stunned and repulsed Bren, but he hasn’t quite come to the point of eating raw chicken organs and blood. He’s pretty sure he’s not hardy enough to withstand that. “You can have it.” 

“You sure?” she asks. “It’s like sushi, kind of! I’ve heard of sushi, it’s raw fish except  _ fancy.”  _

“I’m sure,” he insists. “Go ahead.” 

“Well… okay!” She looks reluctant for all of a split second, and then casts that hesitation away for the sake of reaching out, picking up the bowl, and tilting it back like she’s trying to gulp down the last spoonfuls of soup. A chunky, grisly soup. He looks on in a bit of awe at the spectacle as she devours the ‘offering’. When she’s done, she sets the bowl down, sighs with satisfaction, and then she burps. She gives him a quick embarrassed, startled look at that, like it had surprised her coming out. 

She just ate the raw innards of a chicken as he watched, and now she’s embarrassed over burping in front of him. 

A sound escapes him, loud and unfamiliar and involuntary, and it takes him a long second to recognize it as _ laughter.  _ Not a dry chuckle, but outright laughter. He raises a hand towards his face, a bit disbelieving, and feels the way the muscles in his face pull in a way they usually don’t, almost aching in how unpracticed he has become. Smiling, he’s smiling, wide and broad with teeth gleaming. 

Nott gives him a stunned look for a long moment, before she crosses her arms and huffs at him. “Well, I never! It’s not nice to laugh at a lady, Caleb,” she says, but he sees happiness at the edges of her. She’s just playing her indignation up for laughs. 

“I am sorry, my friend,” he says, still smiling, laughter burbling beneath his words, and he reaches out and pulls her in for a hug. She melts into him, abandoning her pretense of affront easily. “Will you forgive me?” 

“Oh, fine. But only since you asked so nicely… and let me have all of that chicken. Come on, let’s go to bed. Or to hay, I guess?” 

“Yes, lets,” he agrees, his Dancing Lights lazily spinning around them. He will follow her up the ladder and fall asleep in a mound of hay with her, his best friend in the world nestled up against him warm and close, her hunger sated, the two of them safe from the cold and the rain for the night. 

He is smiling, and for just a moment all of the hundreds of reasons that he does not deserve to ever do so do not touch his mind, briefly forgotten. Nott has a gift for making him do and take and steal things that he does not deserve. 

“Don’t fall down the ladder, lebbie, your arms are like noodles…” 

How appropriate for a thief. 

**Author's Note:**

> Nott eats a raw chicken. Also Caleb is sad in general.


End file.
